Sheila woke up in the middle of the night with the Diary of Ann Frank opened on her chest. Startled, she looked around like an abandoned puppy. There were no guards. No Harleys rumbled up the driveway to relieve the watch. That?s what it was. It must have been midnight, and she prayed earlier that Rip was bullshitting about her being left alone.
Alone in the desert equaled a torturous silence. So quiet, a social man could quickly slip out of his mind. Without generators running, fountains trickling or the sound of traffic in the distance she could hear a rattlesnake fart. It wasn?t long before she wished she could hear the tapping of tarantula paws on the deck.
With an extreme level of silence came loneliness, like solitary confinement at the bottom of a collapsed coal mine. No sound, no escape and no communication. No phones hung from the walls of the trailer. She searched. One burrito rested on an otherwise empty wire refrigerator shelf. Three cans of Campbell?s soup were topped with dust on an almost empty shelf. She searched for a can opener, a pan and fortunately the stove still worked. She read the book and sipped tomato soup from a chipped ceramic cup.
She read the story about a small Jewish child and her family hiding and living in mortal fear of Nazi patrols for years during WWII. Ann listened to one neighbor after another being dragged from their homes, shot, or beaten and taken to concentration camps. She read how the family struggled to survive. Initially she read to fill the quiet with some distraction, but she learned from every page. By the second day, she found a small travel sewing kit and began to repair her clothes. She read how Ann Frank?s family subsisted on limited rations, and she milked a can of Campbell?s soup for three meals.
She fixed her clothes and modified a faded pair of Levis to fit. She discovered an old pair of work boots and made leather laces and padding so she had something protective to wear. Each day in the hot sunlight she foraged into the shed that housed the ?69 XLCH Sportster. It held no battery, but just a magneto. She found a dusty manual and read starting procedures. By the third day, she cleared the cobwebs and black widows from around the bike and rolled it into the sunlight. On the fourth day she cleaned it and attempted to kick it over for the first time. By day she read the manual, checked the oil, learned out to retard the spark and cried when it wouldn?t start. By night she read Ann Frank and regained her courage.
The last remnants of the breakfast burrito were gone by the fifth day and she was down to one third of a can of soup. She discovered a small bag of chips and ate them with water for lunch while she sat on the motor home stoop and stared at the metallic coffee brown motorcycle responding defiantly to her every kick. She was hungry and kicked with more passion each time.
As the sun-baked overhead she removed the cap from the bottom of the carb and inspected the Tillotsen carburetor diaphram. She replaced it and studied the manual. She flushed the carb with fresh petrol and tested the accelerator pump. It started to work.
As the sun dipped into the west and she pondered the walk toward Coachella Valley, the Sportster fired for the first time. It coughed, blew smoke, but kept running after she advanced the left grip and opened the choke. She rode bicycles as a kid, but never a motorcycle.
She straddled the rumbling motorcycle and pulled in the clutch. She tapped the shifter and felt it jump as the gears engaged. The sticky clutch grabbed, the bike lurched forward and died. She almost cried. Her stomach knotted from hunger. She kicked it three more times and it started again. Once more she attempted to roll and it died. By the third attempt she was able to rev the engine slightly and prevent the clutch from killing it. She let out the clutch lever slowly and rolled slightly, dragging her feet, then stopped. She attempted rolling and stopping several times in front of the motor home until she was forced to turn.
She felt the weight of the motorcycle lean against her tired legs and stopped. The bike teetered. She was starving, but afraid and weak. She thought about the book, the struggles, the fear and knew her experience wasn?t nearly that foreboding. She grimaced, struggled and the bike teetered. She hesitated, let out the clutch and inched the throttle back. She felt the torque heighten and pull the weight.
She remembered the old adage about once riding a bicycle. Her adrenaline surged and she motored to the end of the driveway leading a ? from the road. The dusty gravel road turned 360 degrees and headed back out to the road past the shed. She came to the fulcrum and started maneuvering the turn in front of the motor home. Goosing the throttle the rear wheel spit gravel and started to slide. Sheila put her right foot out and the loose boot bounced along the uneven surface. She didn?t know what to do. The bike was gradually slipping out form under her, and perplexed, she didn?t know whether to gas it or pull in the clutch and coast. She was terrified of dropping it and stopped, struggled to right the machine and kick the kickstand down.
The next morning she awoke to a start. There was no coffee, tea and the book ended with the family tossed in a concentration camp. Sheila donned all the clothes she made and repaired, and headed out to the bike. It started on the third kick to her delight. She found a set of shades, but fearful of the turn, she pushed the 450 pound motorcycle around the circular drive in front of the her rehab center and straddled it. Her stomach growled, she had to find something to eat and her way back to the Cantina.
As the sun crested the hills to the east and showered the desert with blistering morning rays she rolled toward a road she never gazed at before. The Sporty slid and jostled in the gravel and sand ruts. She didn?t dare roll over about 10 mph as she watched with concern the varied rutted road ahead. Her terror increased as the road dipped and weaved, but then she saw it up ahead and heard the sound of traffic for the first time in days. She pressed on.
The long driveway turned just ahead around a granite bolder, the size of a small two-story condo, surrounded by a patch of cactus and Joshua trees. She slowed and braked nervously while staring at the rugged condition of the road. The bike?s rear wheel took one rut and the front took another. She mistakenly braked more and the bike slid sideways and went down. Her heart broke. She was less than half a city block from the road and pinned under the heavy motorcycle. She looked around in the cloud of dust for an answer or help. Suddenly the bike moved, the engine shut off and the pinning against her leg was remedied.
The cloud of dust cleared and she could make out a pair of dusty cowboy boots in the sand. ?Can I buy you breakfast?? Bandit said and lifted the Sporty.
?But the bike. Will it be alright?? Sheila said scrambling to her feet. For a few seconds her hunger didn?t taunt her.
?It?ll be fine,? Bandit said and pushed it to the pavement ahead. ?This is the first H-D I ever owned. It can handle anything, and I suspect you can too.?
He parked the bike and returned for his 2003 blacked- out King hidden in the sand behind the bolder. ?You ready for something to eat? Bandit said.
?Please,? Sheila said.
?Let?s hit it,? Bandit said. ?I know just the place, Ruby?s. Then we gotta get back to the harbor. It?s time to doll-up the Cantina for New Years Eve.?
